Prima Princessa Ballet for Beginners

Beauty, grace, and technique . . . Ballet!

Prima Princessa ushers readers into New York City’s famous School of American Ballet (SAB) in Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Through stunning photography, they’ll enter SAB’s classroom and get an intimate look at how elite dancers train. The visit begins in a pre-ballet class, moves to SAB’s Children’s Ballet Division (eleven-year-olds), and finally arrives at the near-professional Advanced Ballet classes (sixteen-year-olds).

Stephanie Troeller studied dance at Marcel Marceau’s International Theater School in Paris, France, and at Martha Graham in New York City. She is the proud designer of Prima Princessa. Stephanie lives in Montclair, New Jersey with her husband and four children.

Stephanie and Mary Kate are the producers of the “Prima Princessa Presents” series of ballet DVDs for children. You can visit them online at www.PrimaPrincessa.com.

Editorial Reviews:

BookLoons Reviews

Join Prima Princessa as she takes young readers on an exploration of the wonderful world of ballet. You'll see some very young dancers (ages four and up) learn about creative movement, musicality and pantomime.

Then it is on to New York's School of American Ballet for a visit to the Children's Ballet Division. Here you'll see a demonstration of the basics of ballet. After some posture and stretching exercises, there are pictures of young girls demonstrating the basic positions. Soon you'll know the difference between plie and releve as well as pas de chat or arabesque.

After an older dancer demonstrates some of the more advanced positions, the book ends with seeing how a ballerina prepares to go on stage. You'll also be the audience for her special dress rehearsal where she puts everything together.

Lots of color photographs along with instructions on how to hold one's body for each position make this the ideal book to give a youngster who is considering ballet lessons. After she pores over this and takes it all in, she'll have a much better idea whether this is something she wants to spend her time doing.

Looking Glass Reviews

This excellent title will give young ballet fans a very real sense of what it is like to learn ballet, and how much work it takes to become a performing ballet dancer. There are beautiful color photographs on every double page spread, and the chatty and personal writing style used throughout the book makes the text engaging and easy to read.